Why is it that whenever NATO does something wrong it is only the US that is blamed..whether they had a presence or not.

Because:
1) NATO is mainly made up of US military (correct me if wrong but the impression is that the States have a bigger military than other country's - so by percentages, most soldiers/sailors/airmen tend to be US service personnel
2) Where the US military go, the US media follow - and the world sees it.
3) The US is not a signatory to an international treaty that requires military incidents where people other than a legitimate target (my phrasing) to be tried by an international judge/jury in The Hague, Holland.

I was going to add that the US military is seen as being a little 'free and easy' with bombs, etc. I was in Italy when a NZ observer (and others) was killed by a US aircraft dropping bombs ahead of the target, When I mentioned that to my Italian workmates, they mentioned that a few years back, an F14 pilot had bailed out of his aircraft while being close to a ski-run in the north of Italy. The pilot was ok. The F14 sliced through a cable-car cable on the way to the earth and about a dozen people died from the fall.

The rest of the world also gets coverage of all the college rampages, workplace shootings, etc that the US have. Our impression - rightly or wrongly - is that the US is a little over-relaxed about guns.

The pilot did not eject from his craft.He flow in a no fly zone at a low altitude (it was anyway forbidden to fly that low) 20 dead, the craft landed with minimal damage on a nearby airport.Both pilots got accused by an usa military court and found: not guilty.Even in the heart of europe in NATO allied countries the USA behaves like a supreme emporer...

I think it's this sort of thing that's at the heart of people's hatred of the US military, even amongst the US' allies, the fact that even when the US military does do wrong there's no accountability. I've no idea why that's even the case, why any organisation would want to cover up incompetence because that only encourages people to continue to be incompetence because there's no penalty for fucking up.

We similarly had an incident here in the UK where a number of British soldiers were killed/injured by two retarded A10 pilots who strafed their convoy (apparently telling the difference between the union jack and the iraqi flag is a bit beyond US military training) in Iraq and as is standard in the UK we hold enquiries when these types of incidents happen to find out what went wrong, in part to give the families closure, and in part to learn from our mistakes. As part of the inquiry we requested the footage from the aircraft from America, but of course no, they closed ranks, wouldn't give the pilots name and so on and so forth.

Thankfully, someone with some understanding of why accountability matters leaked the video regardless and it was all sorted, but the fact that the American response to accidently killing their own allies is "Fuck off we don't care" rather "Shit, we're really sorry, we'll do everything we can to figure out what went wrong" means it's hard to have any sympathy for the US military when they get blown up by IEDs trigged by nothing more than pissed off civilians and so forth - the hatred they create for themselves is entirely their own doing.

Similarly in Iraq, numerous incidents of rape and murder went unpunished by US soldiers - I can't comprehend why you'd ever allow that. That makes the US soldiers akin to the Japenese soldiers that raped Nanking in my eyes, if you want to play the good guy you don't just go into a country and arbitrarily rape and murder people with little or no punishment.

It's shocking how many Americans will also then defend this sort of thing, as if they're oblivious to the fact that in defending it they only create more hatred of their nation and create an even bigger army of extremists abroad that will be out trying to kill them at every opportunity. No one's saying that accidents don't happen, but don't just fucking sweep them under the carpet, actually investigate to see what went wrong, whether anyone was at fault, and try and right the wrongs with your allies by bringing closure and learning from the mistake, and if someone was at fault, then bring them to justice, don't let them get away with it, because in doing that, the US has effectively legalised murder/rape by it's soldiers which isn't a good place to be.

Similarly in Iraq, numerous incidents of rape and murder went unpunished by US soldiers - I can't comprehend why you'd ever allow that. That makes the US soldiers akin to the Japenese soldiers that raped Nanking in my eyes, if you want to play the good guy you don't just go into a country and arbitrarily rape and murder people with little or no punishment.

I would appreciate even one link to a rape that happened that was not punished. I am not going to touch on the murder thing since that is always debatable in a war zone; although I assume you are talking about Haditha... links please.

To the parent, IIRC, it was a pair of EA6B electronic warfare jets that were flying "map of the land" which means extremely low. Their charts did not show the ski lift line but it was NOT a no fly zone. The tail of one of the planes managed to cut the cable supporting the ski lift. Neither plane was damaged.

The pilots of both planes were administratively disciplined (read their careers were over and were unemployable). Americans do not allow their soldiers and airmen to be tried in foreign countries because of politics never allowing a fair trial.

If you need a link, you must be unable to read a newspaper or the link if it is supplied. There have been so many that the media is awash with such incidents but you demand a link as if by demanding it you somehow discredit the comment and then you refer to one incident as if it is the only one you know of.

Your response to the low flying incident is equally dumb. There should have been an inquiry in Italy by an Italian court and if the US is too arrogant to comply with that they should not be there. It i

That's not -or has not always been- true. I remember a case (must have been in the 1980s) when an American soldier in Germany was arrested and accused of murder and rape by domestic police. The U.S. rather surprisingly didn't make any effort to get him out. It was pretty obvious that he was guilty and the guy insisted on being tried in the USA - don't ask me why.
German authorities agreed, he got hs trial in the USA and was sentenced to death. In Germany he'd have got 15 years, 20 at max.

If the US allowed Canada to try US Troops you must necessarily allow Iran to do so in the same circumstances. The basic principle undergirding international law is the equality of states. Moreover in this instance you wouldn't be allowing a country with sane courts to run the trial, you'd be letting Italy do it. Guy Stair Sainty relied on this, and was ruled liable for 20,000 Euros for making statements the Courts admitted were entirely true; apparently mostly because his opponent managed to convince said c

It's not fair, it's just what needs to happen. They're not criminals, because they were caught as combatants in a war zone, but they can't be considered POWs because there is no government that can take responsibility for their actions. The Geneva Conventions only work because if you follow them, the other government is likely to follow them to protect their soldiers who have been captured.

In this war, if US troops are captured, they either get beheaded or have some other sort of non-POW thing happen to t

Who were caught as combatants in a war zone? I do hope you are not referring to those in Guantanamo as the majority of them were not combatants in a war zone and even if they were that war is over. There is no war and no logic reason to hold them. America has not followed the Geneva Convention in any way in that regard. Most of those taken were not from any war but from a witch hunt. Of the 4 returned to Britain, only one had even been to Afghanistan. The US offered rewards to intelligence services th

That makes the US soldiers akin to the Japenese soldiers that raped Nanking in my eyes, if you want to play the good guy you don't just go into a country and arbitrarily rape and murder people with little or no punishment

There's a semi-hidden cemetery in France filled with executed US WWII solders who raped and murdered the locals. The military has such disrespect for them that they are only marked with numbers, not names. We don't execute quite so much anymore, but we still do proper military criminal investigations into such allegations.

There are two sides to this. On one, we talk as you do about making sure justice is done for crimes committed, and the damage inherent in not fully investigating. On the other hand, there's the concern about railroading troops who were doing the best they could in a bad situation. A soldier fighting for his life in a firefight shouldn't have to ask to for a time-out so he can consult an attorney to avoid potential Monday-morning legal quarterbacking. This is all the harder with an enemy who doesn't wear a uniform and blends in with the locals.

And, yes, every friendly fire incident gets a full investigation. Criminal charges are unlikely since most of these are truly accidents with multiple contributing factors. However, we once railroaded a colonel out of the Army over a friendly fire incident, using the fact that he'd violated some local command policy by going up that day when they couldn't find an actual violation of law in the friendly fire incident itself. Because of feelings just like yours, there is a LOT of political pressure from the very top to convict for friendly fire incidents, and in those cases we have to be extra sure that justice, not mob justice, is done.

There are two sides to this. On one, we talk as you do about making sure justice is done for crimes committed, and the damage inherent in not fully investigating. On the other hand, there's the concern about railroading troops who were doing the best they could in a bad situation. A soldier fighting for his life in a firefight shouldn't have to ask to for a time-out so he can consult an attorney to avoid potential Monday-morning legal quarterbacking. This is all the harder with an enemy who doesn't wear a uniform and blends in with the locals.

A huge difference between the US and other western countries is that the US soldiers prime directive is to keep themselves safe, while for other countries, civilians rank above soldiers, and are to be protected at high costs up to and including your own life - even civilians on the enemy side.

Protecting your own ass by firing at civilians from gunships or bombing from a safe height isn't valor, and it's downright scary that not only do they get away with it, they get fucking medals for it.

You're preaching to an audience that won't believe you. Look at the stats. Something like only 1% in right now and a small number in previously, so they'll believe nearly anything they're fed. I know under Gen McChrystal it got to epic silly-inducing levels with the top-down pressure to NOT go kinetic. Literally, every single bomb air dropped was documented and upchanneled to the minutia detail. Who (nationality) dropped it? Why? Where did it drop? What was around it? Did it even touch a civilian building? etc etc etc. Yet, you read all these comments and we use F-14s as cable car lawn darts, haphazardly kill Brits, and kick puppies (we even import them in case we run low). And, I'l sure some Wiki-Warrior will cut and paste some article written by a guy who was here 5 days, stayed behind the wire, and quote it as gospel-fact. If you learned anything in the military it has to be at least these two principles: Most people sit around and complain about stuff they know nothing about (military, overseas, the government,etc) and second, the media is horrible at representing the reality of a situation.

A huge difference between the US and other western countries is that the US soldiers prime directive is to keep themselves safe, while for other countries, civilians rank above soldiers, and are to be protected at high costs up to and including your own life - even civilians on the enemy side.

If this were actually true we wouldn't be 93% of non-Iraqi casualties in the Iraq war. We wouldn't be 65% of coalition casualties in Afghanistan.

The one that purposely targets civilians. If you'd like, we could go back to previous generations of warfare and just carpet bomb the cities that are giving us trouble,

Oh, like you did with Dresden?

or conduct regular executions of civilians until they give up the enemy operatives they are protecting,

Oh, like you did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

or purposely starve entire regions sympathetic to the enemy.

Oh, like you did during the Manifest Destiny years?

I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no sympathy for craven hired killers. There is nothing honorable whatsoever about the US military and its conduct, compared to any other military force.

I believe the base of the problem is, as earlier said, that the prime US responsibility of a US solder is to protect himself, not to protect civilians. This is barbaric, and the results are predictable

You're living in a dream world, one where war is waged by people who don't protect themselves against people who shoot at them from behind civilians, and live among civilians.

The examples you used from WWII are ones of horrific destruction, and yet they pale in comparison to the sheer scale of the conflict that they were in. I guess if you want to pretend that the US military has ever pretended to be a humanitarian NGO, you might have a point, but honestly, you're telling a boxer that he's more violent than other boxers because he threw bigger punches.

However, within the scope of what military forces do, they can be more or less honorable, and more or less concerned with the lives of civilians. The US military is more concerned with civilian casualties, but they remain a military force, and so if you apply the Florence Nightingale approach to judging them, they will always come up short. They are also in so many places that if you compare them to militaries that have had no scope for operations, they will also look worse. It's easy to look bad when you have fought for a long time in many places for many reasons.

You mean the ones that saved an estimated ten million Japanese civilian lives by breaking the Japanese will to fight? They were literally planning to arm women and children with bamboo spears to fight the invaders.

Oh, like you did during the Manifest Destiny years?

More like the standard tactic in African conflicts, or what we did in the US Civil War.

Instead of dropping a $250 bomb on an enemy entrenched in a civilian area that could land 100 meters off target, we use $20,000 bombs with a 9-meter accuracy. Yes, we're evil, I say we just don't worry and use the cheap bombs. Whey are we spending all this money to protect these civilians?

How about dropping no bombs, and send in some troops, some of which will surely die? That's protecting civilians, and making a sacrifice.

They were flying too low and based on maps that did not mention the new aerial tramway. They were court martialed in the U.S.A., acquitted, then trialed a second time and were sentenced to a short prison time.

Even in the heart of europe in NATO allied countries the USA behaves like a supreme emporer

The US behaves according to the treaties, and they called for a US trial. There was sufficient reasonable doubt on the manslaughter charges, with the cables missing from maps, flight floor notifications not given or read, and aircraft malfunctions. Mistakes that led to this were went up to the commanders, yet people wanted only crew to be convicted. As is often true with military accidents, the actions of several people, and several intertwined conditions, coincided to create that accident.

Even then the two were railroaded out of the military, with loss of all benefits, because of pressure from the Italians. And in the end the US paid the agreed compensation to the families.

Believe me, Americans are not happy with the way NATO is going either. From a US point of view, Europeans are leaving most of the expense and dirty work to the US and then complain about how the US does the job.

Gates put it pretty bluntly:

Even so, Gates' assessment Friday that NATO is falling down on its obligations and foisting too much of the hard work on the U.S. was unusually harsh and unvarnished. He said both of NATO's main military operations now — Afghanistan and Libya — point up weaknesses and failures within the alliance.

"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense," he said.

Yes! This! All the damn whining and bitching by Europeans about the US Military why don't you kick us out? Please! I'm tired of my tax money going overseas to keep them safe from whomever so they can fund their socialism without having to actually defend themselves. I wish you'd send all the US soldiers home, twenty years later Germany will be running Europe again. It's the only European country that knows it's head from it's ass. (Figuratively Speaking of course)

A] NATO is essentially following US orders. The reason why a lot of european political parties in different countries have been opposed to the participation of their military in NATO. (Although to my knowledge only France has withdrawn from NATO and only for 30 years, they are back)

B] The United States of America as other great democracies such as China, Russia, Saddam hussein's Irak, Iran, Israel and North Korea, doesn't recognize the authority of the La Hague international Penal Court. Therefore No crime of war perpetrated by the US military can ever be trialed by an independant court.

cf : Vietnam, Kosovo, Irak 1 and 2, the contras, etc etc.. I'm not going to start listing the CIA black Ops it would take days.

The truth is mathematically simple : the US military is responsible for more civilian deaths since 1945 than any other military forces, and the number of crimes of war and crimes against humanity they perpetrated far surpasses any other nation. Yet they are the self-appointed judge of what is right and human on the planet, and have been for 70 years. Kind of makes me think of the bible : Satan kills 10 person in the whole book, God 2 millions and something. But God is good and love and satan is bad. Because fuck logic, right ?

Therefore No crime of war perpetrated by the US military can ever be trialed by an independant court

Actually the US can always re-sign and ratify the Rome statute, after which it will be possible to be tried for war crimes. As I understand it, they have problems with suspicion that American citizens who are brought to trial at the Hague may not receive due process, including a jury trial.

The US signed the Rome Statute at first under Clinton (but didn't ratify it), then the Bush administration revoked the signature (which would mean they really don't have to even pretend to abide by it). Now the current administration is showing signs of being interested in the ICC again, but they haven't directly stated that they want to sign or ratify it. It seems like a thin line the current administration is walking - they want other countries to be held accountable at the Hague, but not themselves quite yet. Maybe once the government isn't at war, they'll be more likely to ratify it (since war crimes prior to ratification can't be prosecuted).

I disagree with the statement that the US has perpetrated more crimes of war and crimes against humanity than any other nation. Although the US is by no means a saint, Sudan, Rwanda, Egypt, Syria, Cambodia, Iraq, North Korea, China, and others have had their share of crimes against humanity in the past 70 years, including genocide in some cases, without trial in an international court. Iraq 1 and 2, Kosovo, Vietnam, etc. aren't by their nature war crimes. War crimes do happen in every war, and I personally think people who commit them should be held accountable by the Hague (including Americans). But to say that the US as a whole has committed more crimes against humanity than, say Rwanda where 800,000 people were killed in 1994, or the Kmer Rouge which killed 1.7 million Cambodians in the late 1970's, is nonsense.

That about sums up the US government's attitude towards "collateral damage" (voluntary manslaughter to those who accept reality), and underscores the reason why the US government "allows" it to happen (makes it happen to those who accept reality). Most of you probably aren't aware that the US government actually has a quota on civilian deaths -- if the number is less than 30 (if I remember correctly), they don't even need to call their superiors to "sign off" on it. If the number is greater than 30, they ca

"Collateral damage" is the way wars used to be won. You killed enemy soldiers, of course, but you also killed vast numbers of civilians. Only when one side no longer has the will to fight can the war be considered over.

Nowadays wars go on forever because nobody wants to even hurt a civilian. Even after the fighting stops countries still consider themselves to be at war. That breeds new wars.

I spent 4 years in Uncle Sam's Air Farce. I lived in a dormitory, not a tent. I slept on a bed, not on a cot. I handled an M-16 a whopping total of 4 days of those 4 years. I spent those 4 years working on fighter jets (F-16, to be more specific) and was able to pass the exams for an FAA Airframe Mechanic's License when I got out.

I used my VA benefits to pay for expenses while I finished off a B.S. CompSci, after I got out.

Finished college over a decade ago. Making plenty more than I would've if I'd stayed in, or had never finished college.

If I'd joined the Army, I would've spent more time in a tent, more time on a cot, more time eating really lousy food. Just because I served my country doesn't mean I felt the need to do it the hard way.

Yeah, I know we bitch about missing options all the time, but how about non-combatant service (civilian employment or government contractors)? I know they get shit for not being on the front lines but they're just as important in keeping those that are safe.

Yeah, think of the contractors! Oh, so many, many contractors! Working hard with all that unlimited overtime on cost-plus contracts. Maintaining those job security clearances so they can stay eligible for those corporate welfare programs they're entitled to.

Ah, fun times, and interesting people (particularly the servicemen who had the best stories of working with awesome technology). But in the end, I decided to finally leave the DC area because I didn't really want to be a beltway bandit my whole life.

There are some that take advantage but there are some that really do good work. Not all contractors (and I did mention government employed civilians, too) burn tax money. The bureaucratic overhead the government itself spends is excessive, too, but you still just pick on the contractors; awesome!

My brother was in the Navy and now he works for a contracting company fixing weapons systems. I would say my brother is doing good work and is in no way taking advantage of anything; he doesn't make a ton of mone

Oh, so many, many contractors! Working hard with all that unlimited overtime on cost-plus contracts.

I know some people who went to Iraq and Afghanistan on contracts. They got paid a rather high set salary for the year, and within that usually worked 16 hour days, six days a week. And while being subjected to danger, they weren't allowed to carry a weapon.

Some decades back the "past non-US military" option would have been a lot larger in a poll like this. But since then most European countries have phased out conscription, meaning it's no longer the norm for men.

Interestingly some have said this reduced gun crime in the past: when someone teaches you at the start of adulthood that guns kill and then teaches you how to kill only when ordered to kill you're less likely to use guns for your own purposes. I don't really believe it but it's an interesting viewpoint.

Another interesting thing is that a generation back you could probably have given an AK-47 to a random European male and there would have been a greater than 50% chance that he could use it. And by use I mean not just firing, but more like a rudimentary load-set to single fire-take aim-fire routine. Would it ever have repelled the Soviet Union? Probably not, but on the other hand tens of millions of riflemen can in principle do anything. It's good we never had to find out.

Yeah, I managed to avoid conscription when I was 18 by simply acting sufficiently disinterested. Apparently there is a point at which even the (Swedish) army just sort of gives up on any hopes of turning you into a soldier.

Mostly I just didn't see the point in wasting a whole year running around in the woods when I could go straight to college.

Sure, because running around in the woods practicing how to repel a soviet invasion that was unlikely to happen since the USSR had already imploded on itself was much more useful for society than going to college...

Also, I didn't refuse to serve, I was simply very clear on my lack of interest and they chose to let me off the hook (technically up until we got rid of conscription they could've decided to reverse that decision and even now if a war pops up they can bring conscription back and make me go through Grundläggande Militärutbildning).

The sad thing is that it looks like the military took it seriously and has taken steps to reduce the no-fire rate, such that in vietnam it was down to just 5% of soldiers not endeavoring to kill the enemy. In WW2 it was more like 80%

I'm writing this from the perspective of a former U.S. military person. The problem is too few of our political elite have served. When they get elected and are confronted with decisions of war and peace, or whom to kill or not to kill, they tend to defer to the military establishment. A little more front-line experience at the top would probably result in a more skeptical and more questioning civilian leadership.

To get more buy-in, or so that everybody has some skin in the game, some form of reverse draft

Im actually happy that I got the chance to serve a year with the Norwegian Defense Forces (RNAF) fourteen years ago. To make the year more meaningfull and interesting, I made an effort to get into a conscripted officers course, which essentially let me serve my year as a UB-Corporal with responsibility for a few other conscripts. This also came with the option to continue on as a seargeant (and then second leutenant after another year) when my conscript year were over. However, I chose not to continue with

How is that a missing option? It's not a poll about your parentage. You either are or were in the military, or you never have been. For once a slashdot poll actually seems to have covered all bases. This is such a rare occasion that we should be celebrating!:)

someone in a military family has a distinctly different relation to the military (and often to the surrounding community and to society at large) than does an equivalent person in a civilian family. Certain rules&regs apply to families of military personnel and certain privileges apply to them as well. I recall going through a checkpoint to go to school, or having to carry my ID going to the pool or the beach, because I had to go back through the main gate to get back home. I remember dreading my father being transferred, and feeling both sad and guiltily relieved when he was sent overseas by himself, because it meant that I wouldn't have to leave my friends and home again. On the other hand, unlike most citizens of the US, I had free medical care - until my father retired. And really cool parades. And hands-on time in a tank.

Even today, when I doubt I could adjust to military life, I find some aspects of the civilian world irrationally chaotic. I tear up when I see a "missing man" flight overhead, or a military funeral. I even miss the sound of "Colours" at sunset.

My life is no longer bound up with the military, but my memories and emotions still inextricably tie me to it, and I greatly appreciate those who serve.

Until someone mentioned to me that less than 10% of all Americans have ever served in the military, and I looked it up, I'd always thought the number was a much larger. In fact, since 1776, only about 48 million Americans have served in the military during war and peace. And, only 2% to 3% of the US population has seen combat in the military. In fact, only 16.1 million Americans out of 138 million served during World War II, a war that saw 1.9 billion people serve in various militaries.

-Military service gives you a bullshit tolerance that's considerably higher than that of the average person.

-You gain a much better understanding of how to be a cog in a machine. Right now, we have a legislative body full of "mavericks" and "rebels" who couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were on the bottom, mostly because working *with* someone else is perceived as a sign of weakness. You understand that whether you're a big cog or a little co

So one of (one guy of 19 killed?) the grunts killed in Grenada was the son of an MIT professor. My father had that professor when he was a student and he remembers the professor coming in and saying that his son had just been killed during the storming of that island by USA armed forces to "rescue the medical students there". Things like that give you a connection to people who serve in the armed forces and give a reality to the deaths that occur when someone at the top has a desire to rattle some sabers

I was an Army Sergeant in the Canadian Armed Forces, know quite a few people who fought in Afghanistan while the US went off mission, a few of who died, and I have US relatives who are in Afghanistan right now.

I was actually born during the two-and-a-half year period where you didn't even have to register for the Selective Service. And since the most recent war at the time was the Vietnam War, I was not exactly motivated to volunteer.

I enlisted in the Marine Corps my senior year of high school. At boot camp, I had an accident on the confidence course and washed out due to the injury. My DD-214 is listed as an entry level separation.

To be on the safe side, I said that I am not a veteran. This was in 1982, so I probably wouldn't have seen any action had I stayed for my initial tour of duty anyway.

I'm pretty sure that would count sufficiently to qualify as a veteran. You are a member of the military as soon as you sign the appropriate paper work. They make a big deal about being in for real once you graduate basic or whatever but they had to give you a DD-214 because you were already legally a service member.

I spent 8 years in the US Army. I love the service; I learned some really valuable skills to include survival, combat, navigation, telecom and lots more. Spent 2 years overseas -- one hostile environment, one not. Almost got blown up a couple of times, lost a few buddies in the process. One way to look at it is that the military is similar to the largest fraternity you can imagine; people of all types share a common bond of brotherhood that spans generations.
I left the Army a couple of years ago and I'm doing well as a civilian. I'd do it all over again if I had to choose.

Serving is something which can only be truly understood by those who have served. Judging from the polling results (and slashdot snark in general), a minority of people here have been in some form of service or another. The rest, whether they once desired to serve or not, just don't "get it". The people I've met are great, the memories we've had are unforgettable (for good or ill), and the places and cultures I've experienced are vastly different and unique. That's a whole lot of experience I gained which I never could have gotten as a college student or anything else. The choice is always an individual thing, at least in the USA, but there's nothing wrong with NOT donning a uniform and volunteering to fight.

To my brothers- and sisters-in-arms: thank you for your service. You have my respect.

Glad you enjoyed your service. Mine was a pathetic, political cluster-fark. I signed up because I was in a location where the 2 major employers in the area had just collapsed (Eastman Kodak and Xerox). I was broke and unemployed and refused to move back in with the parents.
I scored nearly perfect on the "placement" tests; and was offered a special assignment in a "technically advanced information gathering unit". I was looking forward to cool toys, a chance to travel, and doing something useful. Instead I ended up stateside in a large city in a unit where people went in and never came out.The internal politics in the unit -- which was 10 years past its prime, was desperately looking for a relevant future, and which senior NCOs ruthlessly culled the incoming recruits for small minded policy nazis -- let's just say it was a very depressing situation. The unit was over-weight in senior NCOs and could not keep new recruits past the 4 year mark. I rebelled and barely lasted past 2 years. A decade later I heard most of the unit was RIFed and the tasking sold to a civilian contractor. (Don't ask; can't tell).

I learned how to spot and avoid policy nazis. Was this useful to my country?

... For Operation Shock and Awe. I figure that means I did my part. (Took out pretty much 100% of their offensive capabilities in one day, with very little collateral damage.)

But I did not -- and would not -- have anything to do with occupation. That is a different story altogether, and had nothing to do with their "offensive capabilities".

Hell, if I'd been told the truth (i.e., that their actual "offensive capabilities" against the United States pretty much amounted to little more than peashooters), I would have had nothing to do with it from the start. We were all lied to. And we're still being lied to.

OK, mod this how you like, but having just read this entire thread, I am appalled that it seems to have deteriorated into a discussion of the supposed benefits to society to ENSLAVE people for a portion of their lives and force them to participate in organized butchery (or the support thereof). And yes, it is slavery. Just because your government passes a law and says it's for your own good doesn't change the fact that an unwilling participant in any such scheme is most definitely a slave.

And apart from that, I find it appalling that a seeming majority of people think military service is some kind of noble endeavor. The biggest nations and military alliances aren't fending off invasions of their homes. They ARE the invaders. They go to foreign lands, meet exciting new people and MURDER them. Usually on the flimsiest pretexts. "I was following orders" is not an excuse for killing someone. "They shot at me first" isn't an excuse when YOU are the invader. That's akin to a burglar claiming self-defense in shooting a homeowner who tried to defend his property. "I joined to do good and defend my country but a bad president started a bad war" is NEVER an excuse. You chose to join knowing that could happen (and based on, oh, say all of US history, you should have known it was damn likely), and when it comes right down to it, you choose to fire a weapon and take a life. Military service is NOT noble, it's despicable. Whatever the intentions, the soldiers make possible the wholesale slaughter of foreign peoples. Until people stop glorifying the trained attack dogs of the state, and stop making excuses for their actions, governments will have a plentiful source of cannon fodder and bullet sponges to continue invading and slaughtering.

No, it is not. Please stop abusing that word to describe things that are not slavery. Slavery is a well-defined concept that does not apply here. I'm not saying it isn't bad or evil, just that it is not slavery. You don't become someone's property, your children don't become someone's property. It has a limited term, there are ways to leave, there are limits to what they can do to you and a million other differences.

Until people stop glorifying the trained attack dogs of the state, and stop making excuses for their actions, governments will have a plentiful source of cannon fodder and bullet sponges to continue invading and slaughtering.

Which is exactly why it is glorified. Without the glory, nobody sane would do it.

No, it is not. Please stop abusing that word to describe things that are not slavery. Slavery is a well-defined concept that does not apply here. I'm not saying it isn't bad or evil, just that it is not slavery. You don't become someone's property, your children don't become someone's property. It has a limited term, there are ways to leave, there are limits to what they can do to you and a million other differences.

Your "well-defined" definition of slavery appears to be based specifically on the US system of African slave trade and exploitation, which is among the most extreme and horrific implementations of slavery in human history. However, slavery has appeared in many other forms, where there is no obvious racial "marker" to permanently deny humanhood to the enslaved population. When considering patterns of conquest and slavery in other societies, from Native American tribes to the Roman empire, the attributes that

Wait, what?!? There are still draft boards in the USA? I thought they still have selective service for males once they turn 18 (boo, why not women too), but I didnot know that there are really such things as draft boards and deferrals. I thought that was a 1960's-1970's thing with the vietnam war and that it ended after the vietnam war... What are they skipping telling us abouts civics in history class this year?

Actually, we do have functioning draft boards. The federal government maintains fully trained draft boards and appeal boards all across the country. If the war mongers ever need more troops than they can get to join, the draft can be reinstated in a very brief time. If the draft is reinstated, I am certain it will be a gender equal program, so you might have to trade your training bra for an AK-47. Unless you are in my jurisdiction and ask for a deferment, of course.

Re:does draft board count? -- Yes, Virginia, there is a draft board, with local draft boards set up by the Selective Service with 11-thousand volunteers at the present. And no, in my opinion, it does not count (as military service, for the terms of this poll, your mileage and opinion may vary).

I did six years as an enlistee and overall I think I got more out of it than I lost.

I've actually wondered whether or not 100% mandatory conscription into military/civil service wouldn't do the US some good. I'm not talking about everyone being forced to be a soldier or some such. But I think giving everyone a more personal connection to the actual business of war and humanitarian aid would quite possibly help calm the national fervor that has led to some of our more recent military escapades.

And there isn't any good reason that such a thing couldn't be combined with obtaining a higher education. I knew a number of guys that spent most of their enlistment attending colleges classes in the evenings.

But I think giving everyone a more personal connection to the actual business of war and humanitarian aid would quite possibly help calm the national fervor that has led to some of our more recent military escapades.

I would doubt that. The more recent national fervor happened because the public wasn't told the truth, and even then, the general public didn't have the fervor, the leadership did. You could say that those that elect the leaders that choose war did, indirectly, choose war. But in a two party system it's mostly about voting not for who you believe in but against those you're afraid of.

Ignoring all that, I would find it easier to believe that conscription and mandatory service in the US would make it harder t

Heinlein has some great thoughts on conscription, and on 100% conscription. (For a militaristic guy, he really hated the draft) And I can see his point and even agree with him to an extent. There are advantages in the all volunteer force.

that said, I can see the other side of the coin too, the benefits of mandatory service. Though in my view, such service would not have to be military, or even be at the federal level. I would include the Peace Corps, local police and fire departments, doing missionary work

Heinlein has some great thoughts on conscription, and on 100% conscription. (For a militaristic guy, he really hated the draft) And I can see his point and even agree with him to an extent. There are advantages in the all volunteer force.

that said, I can see the other side of the coin too, the benefits of mandatory service. Though in my view, such service would not have to be military, or even be at the federal level. I would include the Peace Corps, local police and fire departments,

... which is just the way it was in Starship Troopers (the book). To become a citizen required doing two years of government service - but that service didn't have to be military. You could be police, fire, an inspector for some government agency, or even a postal worker and earn your citizenship. (There was only a single world government, and it wasn't clear whether there were federal and non-federal levels, but the actual requirement is stated as "government service".)

Now, because humanity had a major war going on, joining the military was the easiest route to getting your government service in... but it wasn't the only.

I wonder why the military doesn't recruit people for non-combat rolls. At least as I'm aware, it doesn't happen. Sure if you got some sort of medical condition, they won't send you, but why not let people sign up to help in other ways, with the stipulation that they will not be sent into combat. I probably wouldn't have minded helping out my country's military (not the US, we're pretty peaceful) but don't really think that I'd be all the useful in a combat situation. I know a couple other people, even those with degrees in computer science and similar and they all had to do tours in Afghanistan or Somalia or other similar places. I think they'd be able to get a lot more/better people doing important non-combat roles if they just let them join up as non-combat.

As a former computer-guy in the Army, all of those technical jobs are being occupied by contractors who make 3x what a soldier makes. What you say would make sense, however common sense is severely lacking in the DoD.

When I was in the Chair Force there was a large push to eliminate career fields that were not deployable or at least didn't have a reason to deploy.

A lot of the enlistment restrictions though aren't even so much about making sure you have combat ready troops, it's about cutting medical expenses. That is both in the present and in the future. For instance their pretty in uniform PT requirements were geared to reduce long term medical liability. Otherwise me being fat, despite excelling at all other PT goals

I don't think it's appropriate to attack the "grunts on the ground", however; depending on who you ask [wikipedia.org] somewhere between 100k and half a billion people died as a result of the war in Iraq, including over 4k US servicemen/women.

I'm sure the vast majority of you and your brothers served with honor, but the entire operation was a cluster-fuck from start to finish.